tthews. "I ain't no city
tough."

"We shan't need _your_ services at Brannon any longer. You light out."

After that, mess went merrily on. "Didn't know you had it in you,
Fraser," marvelled one officer. "By crackey!" added a second. "How you
_can_ slug!" The surgeon sighed. "No one has ever understood Robert,"
said he, "but women, critters, and kids."

And now Matthews' blood was up, and under his sloping forehead the
grey-matter was bubbling and boiling like the soup in the sutler's pot.
He hurled out terrible oaths--against the shack, against Captain Oliver,
against Fraser, against the old pilot. Dallas Lancaster had made a cheap
spectacle of him; the commanding officer had ordered him to leave
Brannon; the "unlicked calf" of a lieutenant had whipped him out of
hand; and the man most ready to guzzle his liquor had gone through the
barracks a-blabbing.

He hurried to his room to pack his belongings. "I'll fix 'em, I'll fix
'em," he raged. "I'll git even with the hull crowd."

He halted at a window and looked across the Missouri at the little
shack. "When the reds go to the reservation, that'll do for _you_," he
said. "But--how can I soak them damned shoulder-straps?"

It was then that a change in his plan came to his mind. Why wait until
the Indians were sent, if----

The more he thought of the change, the better he liked it. "One deal,
and everybody fixed. Land'll be mine, and there'll be some
court-martiallin'."

He determined to get into the stockade for a last talk with the
hostages. If they approved what he proposed, he would promise them his
services. Yes, he would. The value of the quarter-section had made him
fight for the Bend. But this was a horse of another colour. His pride
had been outraged--for that he would have his quits.

His conduct earlier in the day, and the fight at the sutler's, gave
place, that afternoon, to other and more direful news. A steamer touched
on its way down the river and told of the Custer massacre. Not a trooper
at Brannon but had lost a friend; not an officer but had lost several.
Gloom settled upon the post, and Matthews was forgotten.

He took advantage of that. Before an order went out to prevent him, he
went through the wicket of the sliding-panel and gathered around him the
four chiefs named in Cummings' ultimatum. They were more sullen,
unhappy, and discouraged than ever. A few words, and he had them
breathless with interest

"You must look to me alone for free